Low Mac FPS issues with WoW 4.01 update and possible fix
I have been out of playing WoW for close to 4 months and heard recently of Warcraft being updated to 4.01 which includes new graphics, talent trees and other pre Cataclysm goodness.
So I renewed my WoW account, installed the huge 4.01 update and jumped back into the World of Warcraft. When I first logged in I was very disappointed to find my frame rates on my i5Mac dropped from upwards of 150fps to anywhere from 5 to 30fps. Certain areas like major towns and Dalaran were almost unplayable due to graphics lag and low frame rates. I dumped all my addons, trashed the config/WTF files etc. all to no avail.
Apparently this has affected a wide variety of Mac WoW gamers.
What worked for me…
I basically did two things.
1. Launch WoW and go into ingame video settings and disable Sunshafts and set Liquid Detail to Low.
2. While in game type “/console SET gxAPI OpenGL” and hit return, exit WOW, login again and the fix will be in effect, or you can open the Config.wtf file with TextEdit and add a new line at the end of the file, type: SET gxAPI “OpenGL”
By making the above simple changes I went from 20-ish fps to upwards of 60 to 160 fps! My set-up is an iMac 27-inch i5, 4GB RAM and ATi 4850 512MB graphics card.
So i’m back to normal with regards to very playable frame rates, now, anyone have a good rotation for an Arcane Mage and Frost DK? Lol, playing WoW with the new update and overhauled talent trees feels like I’m kinda staring all over again. At least I hope this helps anyone who might be having crappy frame rates.
Thanks for the great information you have given us mac gamers that blizzard seems to forget about.
Haha the best post ever of the week, thanks man i have exactly this problem and the only (lazy) solution was to remove all options, so it works but ugly.
And you can be lucky as Mage and DK are now real terror in pvp, especially the mages, kinda OP if you see what I mean; enjoy.
PvP terrors lol, sweet, yeah i’m just trying to get my basic PvE down before I jump into PvP, thanks for the tip!
iirc, going the SET gxapi “OpenGL” route will automatically disable sunshafts and liquid detail because they aren’t supported in OpenGL, only GLL.
The problem in doing that is that you get all the OTHER problems that come with the Open GL backend… like input lag, certain texture issues and so on…
Far be it for me to discourage folks from doing what’s necessary to play. I’m glad folks are going over, under, around or through to get to their enjoyment rather than just complain and wait.
It’s just important to know that the OpenGL reversion isn’t without it’s own issues and for Mac users to do it with their eyes wide open.
One possible way to partially bridge the gap is as you say to disable sunshafts and set liquid to low. That seems to improve some low framerate situations by about 50%.
As well, for Dalaran, try this macro:
When in Dalaran, open the combat log (click the combat log window tab next to the General window tab)
Make a macro with this one line:
/run COMBATLOG:UnregisterEvent(“COMBAT_LOG_EVENT”)
It stops the game from registering global combat logging in dalaran. Only within 100 yds so if you run from South bank to North bank or vice versa you may have to click it again, but it’s amazing if you log in to 2 fps and can finally click this, how you can restore as many as 50% of your framerate.
It’ll never get all of your framerate back because global combat logging is enabled so even ONE duel in the Dalaran sewers is spammed to EVERYONE and that causes significant lag (that’s why they removed all the quest lines from Crystalsong Forest).
Anyway, I have a Mac Pro 1,1 2.66GHZ with X1900 on 30″ ACD and wife has the 24″ core duo iMac with the 2600HD.
We’ve been able to avoid the OpenGL reversion with these suggestions and thus benefit from the input lag fix and other benefits of GLL.
Hope that helps.
Be well,
Mack
Thanks for the info/tips Mack, especially the Dal macro
The OpenGL thing has been very handy since 3.3.5 hit, which is when the graphics started to get really weird on my early 2008 macbook pro. Eventually I got a new logic board (mine was bad) and it fixed the problems with the game. Maybe there are some hardware conflicts too?
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Thanks for the post sir. I was able to accomplish very playable framerates by just disabling Sunshafts and setting Liquid Detail to Fair.
No need to set the OpenGL thingie.
I’m on iMac i7 / 4850 / 27in
Hi!
Nice guide!!!
I’m having the exact same problem and now that I applied the settings i’m still very disappointed with the water graphics, but I can’t change it now because of /console SET gxAPI OpenGL(I guess)… Is there a way to have the water graphics set on high without the insanely low FPS? and how do I disable ”/console SET gxAPI OpenGL” which unables me to change the graphics?
Thanks for the advice. Ive been having extremely low FPS as well since Cata, esp in major cities like Org now. I will try this when I get home and get back to you on this, to see if it worked. I *hope* it helps. I hate the low FPS esp when I know my system is not shitty.
<3
tyvm man i got the same 27″ mac and this works perfectly…
Thx man!, after patch 4.1 this bug still happening
Omg.. THANK YOU!!! I have a MacPro desktop and its a great fast system. After last couple patches I was getting 4 fps in Org! I couldnt even steer my character out of the Inn. Blizzard Tech Support couldn’t help me at all. I did what your message said and now I’m standing in Org at 35 fps.. Thank You for this post!
I don’t know whether u solved your problem or not, but I had the same problem with fps. All of a sudden the fps rate dropped from120fps to 12-30max. I tried every solution I ve found on the Internet starting from setting open gl, direct3d, max fps, resetting sms and ending with re installing the system and wow. But nothing worked. Than I came across an issue with graphic problem while running adobe premier pro. What worked in that case and in the case of WOW was installing the new cuda nvidia driver. Try it it helps
Question I Did All This Awhile Back Witch Was Great But Ive Recently Got More Ram Into My Mac and was wondering how to get the settings back to normal ?
Hi Patrick, You can revert any custom APIs you’ve picked by going into the config.wtf file in your wtf folder and removing the “SET gxAPI” line. Hope this helps and good luck!
Hi and thank you. My fps is still low at 30 right now but it has stopped sporadically and frequently dropping to below 10. The game is playable! Yay!
Thanks for your comments, this works/helps in most all cases when your rates drop to unplayable levels but is still dependent on your machines hardware to get mega FPS
-best, -R
Just an FYI…I too had a very slow FPS problem after my OSX Lion update (on JA and JK2), but the problem turned out to be the “Creative EAX” sound option needed to be turned off. Once Creative EAX was turned off, my FPS returned to normal.
WOW! Why are you the only one telling this??
Thanks a lot and it’s a shame that a 1800 dollar computer isn’t handling a 5 year old(er)? game!